When you were younger did you ever hear this?

“It’s not what you say.  It’s how you say it!”  Those words from our mothers ring even more true today.  With hundreds of new forms of communications, there are constantly new ways to communicate.  That’s a good thing, I think.

But on the other side, it has become increasingly easy to be “quick” in your communication.  With the simple and easy functionality of email or text messages, you do lose the nuance.  Sometimes we might simply want to say something directly, but it can come off as rude.  Or at the very least, messages can often be taken in a way that we did not intend.

The trick I think is to (of course) re-read the message before hitting send.  Just as importantly, spend just a moment to think about the mindset of the person reading the message.  Often, when looking through that lens, you might want to re-frame the message…at least just a bit.

You don’t have to do that.  It does take more time.  But if you want to be a more thoughtful communicator, it might be worth it.

Just remember those words ringing in your ear from when you were young.  “It’s not what you say…”

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